Vodafone Australia Network Restored After Major Outage

Vodafone Australia says its mobile network is being "progressively restored" after experiencing a major outage on Thursday morning that potentially affected millions of Australians.

A statement from the company at 11:10am AEST said it was aware some customers were still experiencing "intermittent issues" with network coverage, but the cause of the problem had been "isolated and resolved" and services would soon be back online.

"The disruption was caused by an outage at one of our network hubs at around 8am," the statement said.

"Most services have now been restored, however some may continue to experience intermittent issues as devices reconnect.

The company added that customers who were cut off from the Vodafone network should still have been able to access Triple Zero (000) during the outage, with their phones able to connect to other available mobile networks.

The outage prompted angry comments from Vodafone customers across social media, with some reporting they were without access for the full 3 hours, while others said their access had been "off and on".

Many complained that their businesses relied on a steady mobile connection, and one man said he had been stuck behind a gate because he was unable to open it by phone.

Customers also reported Vodafone stores in Australia were also affected by the outage, and calls by the ABC to several stores returned messages that their numbers were not connected.

The mobile provider's own Network Status Checker also displayed a "502 Bad Gateway" message for a period on Thursday morning, but has since been brought back online.

Vodafone is Australia's third-largest mobile network operator, behind Telstra and Optus.

In addition to direct subscribers, its network is used by customers of TPG, iiNet, Internode and Lebara.

As of February 2025, the network provided services to 5.4 million customers across Australia.

Investors in TPG Telecom, Vodafone Australia's parent company, did not appear to have been spooked by the outage, with the share price still up 0.55 per cent on the morning as of 11:08am AEST.